


Resolution

by leiascully



Category: House M.D.
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-31
Updated: 2007-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-03 06:26:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"A C-cup of kindness?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resolution

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: S4  
> A/N: Here you go, [**lissie_pissie**](http://lissie-pissie.livejournal.com/)! Many thanks to [**roga**](http://roga.livejournal.com/) for the beta, and to [**queenzulu**](http://queenzulu.livejournal.com/) for unwittingly letting me borrow her foolish oncologist. I know it's Tuesday tomorrow, but Monday makes a better story. Happy new year to all!  
> Disclaimer: _House M.D._ and all related characters are the property of Shore Z, Bad Hat Harry, and Fox. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

Cuddy wasn't even supposed to be at work. She had taken New Year's Eve off: after years of House's pranks and end-of-the-year hijinks and anti-resolutions, all she wanted was a little peace and quiet, which meant, of course, that she had been called in by Brown, panicking about some grant he needed to finish the paperwork for which apparently needed to be done today, though she'd discovered after she came in that it wasn't actually due. There were times she wished that Wilson didn't have subordinates; the oncologists all seemed to be nervous or absent. Anyway, here she was, having thrown on jeans and a white button-down after the gym and her shower, her hair still damp in places. She had left all the blinds drawn and only had one lamp on, on the table, trying to avoid the inevitable parade of people needing things. If she sat down at her desk, well, that would be a whole day wasted, because she'd find one thing after the other to work on and she'd never get out of here. In fact, she wasn't going to sit down at all. She leaned over the table on one elbow, marking up Brown's draft with a red pen. Fortunately, it was decently crafted, just needed a little fine-tuning. Maybe she'd get out of here without incident after all.

Unfortunately, House's secret radar seemed to have kicked in, because there was a scuff at her door and the noise of the knob turning as he picked the lock. She sighed and didn't move. Maybe if she stayed still, he wouldn't notice her, except that that strategy probably worked as well on House as it had worked on T. rexes in the distant past.

"Ho ho ho!" he said cheerfully. "Who have we here?"

"It isn't Christmas anymore, House," she said, resignation in her voice.

"Who's talking about Christmas?" he said, settling himself on her couch. "I was talking about you." She could feel his gaze sliding over her ass. "Looks like the holidays were kind to you, Doctor Cuddy. You've got the blessings of the season on both cheeks."

"House," she ground out, refusing to sit and give him the victory, "don't you have anything better to do?"

"Nope," he said with relish. "All the idiots are out preparing to endanger their lives. Nobody's actually done it yet. Bet you the ER's packed at two, though. Cameron'll have a ball. Hope Chase wasn't planning on getting any tonight." He heaved himself up off the couch and hobbled over to her. "I thought you were incommunicado today. What brought you in?"

"Your spies didn't tell you?" she snapped.

"I like to hear you say it," he said, bending down. "Brown's an idiot."

She couldn't help but agree, but it wasn't the time to say it. There was a good chunk of money riding on this proposal, but he should have called Wilson instead. Or just grown a pair and edited the damn thing himself. Or at least not made it sound like the deadline was tomorrow. "Take it up with Wilson. Maybe he'll let you do the hiring next time he has an opening."

"If that were true, he probably wouldn't have so many sets of divorce papers tucked away," House said, and looked at his watch.

"Please tell me you have somewhere to be," Cuddy said.

"It's midnight," House said cryptically, and put his hand under her chin, and kissed her. It was unprofessional and unpredictable and he tasted like coffee, and she was just mad enough to kiss him back and leave them both off balance and gasping.

"It isn't midnight," she said, licking her lips.

"It is in Delhi," he said, a strange brightness in his eyes.

There was a jagged red streak across the draft she'd been editing, but Cuddy found she didn't care much, given that there were a good two weeks until the grant was due, so why had Brown been panicking about getting it done this afternoon? In fact, she didn't care much about anything except the sudden warmth of House's proximity. It was New Year's Eve and it was midnight somewhere, and she hadn't been kissed in longer than she cared to remember, which was House's fault, and all the rest of the shitty things that had happened over the past year were House's fault (she'd gloss over the good bits) and he owed her, dammit. Maybe it wasn't kosher to make your employees pay out in sex, but House wasn't a regular employee and his sins had been just as extraordinary and she was somewhat past the point of caring, given that her House-induced drought of sex had left her so high-strung that after one kiss, she was all a-tingle. She could feel her nipples tightening against her bra and that anticipatory tension in her thighs.

"Come on," she said abruptly.

"Where are we going?" House asked, shifting into stride.

"If you have to ask...." she said, trying for ominous, but her voice had gone throaty. She pulled on her coat and wrapped her scarf around her neck.

"Is this what they taught you in management classes? Motivate your employees by giving them desirable tasks to perform?"

"Shut up or this whole episode will be auld lang syne."

"A C-cup of kindness yet," he said.

"Two if you're lucky," she said, and walked intentionally fast out to her car, so he had to work to keep up. She'd never been so glad she drove an automatic; her hand was in House's lap most of the way home. Vicodin may have dulled his reflexes, but he responded well enough, hissing as her fingers worked up his leg, firming up slowly. By the time they got to the house, he was aroused enough to grind his erection against her ass as they stood on the porch and she unlocked the door. Her skin prickled into goosebumps at the contrast between the cold air and his hot breath on the back of her neck. They slipped through, shucking coats and blazers, and then he leaned back against the door and hooked her around the hips with his cane. She let him pull her close and unwind her scarf, enjoying the proof of his desire against her belly. Their coats were in a heap on the floor. He moved his lips against her face and neck, slowly, searchingly. He rested his nose against her hair, seemingly breathing her in.

"Better start undressing and objectifying me," she said, her eyes closed, "or I might start to think you actually like me."

"Just your shampoo," he said, and unhooked her bra through her shirt. His hands were warm on her hips and her back and up under her shirt and she leaned against him, avoiding the scar. The problem with being with House was that she could never forget it was him. Too many memories, too much roughness between them to smooth away. Anyone else would have been easier than House.

"I should have invited Wilson," she murmured, pushing up House's t-shirt to put her fingertips between his ribs. Wilson had lost a few pounds lately. She imagined the firmness of his belly under her palms, his skin smoother than House's. Wilson took better care of himself. Wilson was more flexible too, which opened up all sorts of possibilities.

"I can't say it wouldn't be his scene," House said into her neck, putting his teeth into her collarbone and bringing her back to the present abrasive moment, "but I think he's got other plans."

She gasped as he unbuttoned her jeans and pushed his hand into her panties in almost one motion. "Wilson swings?"

"More than a Little League whiffleball team," he said, exploring her folds with those long hot fingers. She stood on tiptoe, her hips rocking against his hand. If Wilson's hands had been there too, how exquisite it would have been, pressed between the two of them, though she was too overclocked to deal with his brand of politesse. If Wilson could be rough? But House was demanding, insistent, _there_. House was always there.

"Learn something new," she caught her breath as he crooked a finger teasingly inside her, "--mmm, every day. Let's move this party someplace horizontal, shall we?"

"I thought you'd never ask," he growled. "Will no one think of the cripples?"

She smacked at him lightly and walked backwards, unbuttoning his overshirt. One good thing about House was that he was deft enough to get her out of her clothes without a fuss, leering at her the whole time without even a comment on the changed topography of her body since college. She shucked his jeans off him as he peeled her out of hers. They were better choreographed than that ballet she'd gone to with Wilson just before Christmas. The House lying naked in her bed as she rummaged for a condom wasn't the House of their Michigan years, less toned and more tired, but she was far beyond caring, especially as his fingers crept up and down her thigh. She came up with a condom and handed it to House, but he dropped it on the bedside table.

"Come here," he said. "I can't kneel."

"Oh," she said. It was slightly complicated to maneuver so that he didn't fall off the bed: she ended up half-sitting with her shoulders pressed into the iron whorls of her headboard while he lay on his stomach and braced her thighs apart with his elbows. He kissed the inside of her knee and grunted approvingly.

"You really follow the Girl Scout motto, don't you, Cuddy?"

"Always prepared," she said in a dreamy haze as his fingers parted her folds and his tongue followed them. He hummed and flicked his tongue across all the sensitive spots she would have thought he'd forgotten, and her head knocked against the headboard bars as her back arched. The pleasure was sharp, slicing along her neural pathways, making her toes curl and her hands fist into her comforter as cold iron dug into her back and House let his teeth slide over her. She came unexpectedly, breathing hard, one hand slapping against the headboard, House's fingers slick inside her.

He rested his chin on her thigh. "That ought to make up for something."

"Perjury," she panted. "Wasted plane tickets. Patient dying. Faking rehab. Stealing drugs. Fired all your fellows. Hired _forty_ replacements. General mayhem. You've got a lot more to make up."

"Well," he said, scraping his cheek back and forth across her thigh, "it's always midnight somewhere."

"Thank God for time zones," she said, wriggling down under him as he propped himself up on his arms. "Otherwise you'd never catch up. Ten. Nine. Eight."

He rolled them over and reached for the condom. "Happy new year, Cuddy."


End file.
